Three Reasons We Love Kate Mara

She swears. She shakes hands like a man. And she knows more about football than you do. Oh, and she looks really good bathing.

Kate Mara's hand is small and supple. And it has a grip like a table vise. She grew up around football. Her great-grandfather on her father's side, Tim Mara, founded the New York Football Giants (Wellington was her grandfather); her great-grandfather on her mother's side, Art Rooney, founded the Pittsburgh Steelers. And these men and their progeny have passed on a dedication to grass and helmet crashes and winning, and they have taught their daughters how to shake hands.

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They have also — somehow — passed on something else: beauty. Small body, strong and flawlessly proportioned, California lean. And her face: ruddy, dimpled cheeks, full lips, dark, mischievous eyes. It adds up to something that can silence a bar with a walk to the bathroom.

But back to the hands. Right now in those hands is a present. The wrapping paper is gray and blue, a winter scene of ice skaters doing figure eights on a field of Giants colors. This is what the writer tasked with meeting the twenty-five-year-old actress gives her.

Because it's the day after Christmas.

Adam Fedderly

She opens it — fast, like you peel off a bandage. She looks excited and confused all at once. "You don't know anything about me," she says. Which is mostly true.

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We could start at the beginning, the high school plays and acting gigs, but we'll skip to what matters: to Heath Ledger and Brokeback Mountain, in which Mara played Ledger's daughter Alma Jr. Over the next two years, she played grief-stricken women in both We Are Marshall (with Matthew McConaughey) and Shooter (with Mark Wahlberg). In each she's equally fragile and fierce — and too gorgeous for the part. Later this year she will star alongside Jeff Bridges and Justin Timberlake in the dramatic comedy The Open Road.

The thing about Kate Mara is that you may recognize her name, you may have seen some of her movies, you may know the face, but that's all you know. And that's probably because she likes it that way.

"All the actors I respect, especially old-Hollywood actors, the reason I think so many of them have had long careers is that there is a sort of mystery about them. You don't know what they do on Friday nights when they go home from work. You have no clue. You have this sort of fantasy about them."

During the conversation, she's most comfortable talking football. She grew up with football. If she's in New York and the Giants are at home, she goes (and sometimes sings the national anthem). She has a Giants logo on her BlackBerry. She has a Giants dog tag from Tiffany.

Also, she is shy. That's what she says, at least. "Painfully shy. I hated school. The thought of sitting in a room with twenty kids my age and everybody talking freaked me out." She says she had only one friend growing up. She has trouble in big groups, unless that group is her family. Big family, huge family.

And yet she talks comfortably, confidently, laughing a lot of the time. "Fuck that bitch!" she jokes about competing for roles. She talks about being nervous about her photo shoot since she spent the last month in London, working on a play, thirty nights at the pub. And when she doesn't know an answer, she doesn't wiggle away or sidestep or try to meet you halfway. She knocks it down by saying, "I don't know." It's not rude, just honest.

The wrapping paper is ripped and crumbled on the bar's wooden bench. And now in the hands of Kate Mara — of the burnished amber eyes and tight sweater and Giants dog tag — is a book.

"Why this?"

The book is Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin, an epic novel about New York. The writer explains that he read an interview in which she described desperately missing New York. She moved to Los Angeles five years ago for work but wants to get back.

Also, he points out, it's the day after Christmas.

She looks more amused than touched. Also, she looks surprised — maybe because she left open such a big tell.

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